1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic transducer, an ultrasonic probe, a diagnostic instrument, and an electronic instrument.
2. Related Art
An ultrasonic transducer comprising a plurality of ultrasonic elements arranged in matrix format is known. The ultrasonic elements of this ultrasonic transducer use piezoelectric bodies that are rectangular in shape. Beam forming is accomplished by separately driving ultrasonic elements that are aligned in the direction of the shorter dimension of the piezoelectric elements. Although the resolution (azimuth resolution) in the direction of the short dimension of the piezoelectric body, i.e., the azimuth direction, is increased, a load is imposed on a processing circuit because the drive state of each of the ultrasonic elements must be controlled independently. Meanwhile, it is necessary to provide an acoustic lens in order to improve the resolution (slice resolution) in the direction of the longer dimension of the piezoelectric bodies, i.e., the slice direction, and the position of a focal point of the optical transducer is determined by the acoustic lens.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-512856 discloses an ultrasonic transducer configured such that the position of the focal point can be changed. With this ultrasonic transducer, the position of the focal point can be changed by flexing a substrate on which an ultrasonic element is provided such that the direction of a line segment perpendicular to an emission surface of the ultrasonic element changes.